Donna Leon has lived in Venice for many years and previously lived in Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Iran and China, where she worked as a teacher. Her previous novels featuring Commissario Brunetti have all been highly acclaimed; including Friends in High Places, which won the CWA Macallan Silver Dagger for Fiction, Through a Glass, Darkly, Suffer the Little Children, and most recently, The Girl of His Dreams.
The thoughtful and charming [Brunetti] is on top form ... His nicely balanced world ... is cumulatively engrossing. In this domestic detail, Leon roots the power of the ordinary, moral individual Sunday Times Leon writes with great literary panache and evocative power about the world's most beautiful and mysterious city Spectator Donna Leon has a wonderful feel for the hidden evils that lie below the facade of the magical city, and Brunetti, sturdy family man and cynic, is an endearing guide into the machinations of Italian society The Times It would be simply perverse not to acknowledge [Leon's] skill ... The reader comes to look forward to Paola's elegant Venetian lunches as much as Brunetti does ... The plot of Blood from a Stone both stands up to and complements the cast ... Comfort reading of the highest order TLS The fabulous Donna Leon -- Antonia Fraser Spectator